When did you last exchange letters with a friend? If it has been more than a year you may agree with columnists who say letter writing is dead. You may find further evidence for that theory in your mailbox. Today we receive just one personal letter every two months. But aren't letters are more than a personal good? Don't they stand for a culture that exercises handwritten language and pauses to express complex and intimate thoughts? Haven't they represented a history of love, scholarly discovery, and written memoirs? Emails and texts may be the fastest most convenient mode of exchange but I believe handwritten letters have special value and endurance.
There's always a faster way to reach someone else. Stagecoach and mailboat delivery was bound to give way to airmail and first class post which, today, yields to email and texts. But reaching someone is not communicating with them. Note the differences. Letters are unique. Texts and emails all look the same. Letters are personal carrying the scents, stamp, paper, envelope choices and script of the sender. Emails and texts can be addressed to you alone or ten thousand other people. They are factual, instant, brief. Don't get me wrong. I love email and I'm warming to texts but letters show a special investment and exercise our minds in ways that digital communication neglects.
Digital communication has important implications for cognitive retention and development. A study in 2011 at the University of Washington determined that writing by hand stimulates large areas of the brain that are utilized for thinking, conveying language, and making memory. Hand writing also exercises fine motor skills and teaches the ability to recognize the wide variety of lettering representations found in personal penmanship. Typing messages and thoughts instead of forming the words by hand is a special concern for children or adults facing memory loss. The National Institute on Aging found that letter writing plays a role in aiding overall memory retention for adults. It may also motivate our grandchildren to continue using cursive. Many schools are dropping cursive education because it is no longer a requirement of core curriculum. That may have powerful consequences to a generation. Our hand/brain connection aids learning acquisition and memory.
Letters are important in emotional healing, as an expression of special thank you's, and in alleviating loneliness. They're used to promote cancer recovery and as a healing exercise in therapy. People felt less depressed and had more positive effects after incorporating letter writing into their weekly routine the Mayo Clinic reported. Counselor Lillian Davis observes, "When someone has taken the time to actually write your name and address on an envelope it seems to reaffirm that you matter." Clinician and health coach John F Evans adds, "Letter writing can be therapeutic for the writer as well as the receiver, and it may be just the thing to help you change perspective." In letter writing, he explains, we "intentionally become conscious of another person and this awareness...influences word choice, word order, even the punctuation and sentence structure." For that reason Harvard Business School recently announced that handwritten letters are more important than ever! They convey permanence in a world of impermanence and express gratitude, appreciation, investment and remembrance "in a world where so much communication is merely utilitarian... [handwritten letters] can show the people who matter to your life and business that they are important to you," they write.
San Francisco's snail mail social originator explains what motivates her to write letters.
It's hard to imagine what our world would be without handwritten letters. Gerald R Ford shared that thought in a handwritten letter from the late 1970's. "Letters have been important documents of history which are invaluable in reconstructing events or understanding people," he states. Can you imagine biography without the recovery and interpretation of personal letters? Would you be as interested to read lost emails or texts? Would those instant messages even be recoverable? Digital communication enables us to reach people so far away and so fast but what are we really communicating and would we want to read it more than once? It comes and, by simply deleting, it goes just as quickly. It takes with it our record of correspondence, and, eventually, our self reflective time, the ambition for the bigger concepts we once developed in letters, the deeper sharing we once mailed to friends and family, the romance we enjoyed in our meditation with a letter, and the scent or personal script of a lover or good friend that we enjoyed--letter in hand. Can we recover this lost art? I hope so.
If you'd like to re-energize your letter writing consider joining a pen pal group or checking out some of the many sites that promote the art. The Letter Writer's Alliance discusses all things hand written or, if you'd like to know what it's like to be in a pen pal exchange, explore profiles of modern pen pal relationships or experiences and delights found through those connections. Letter writing can effect social good through cause related campaigns or, as the video explains, when used as a springboard to inter-generational understanding.
Letters serve many important roles in our society and our lives. They're not just a "lost art" they're a foundation for well being, an important cognitive support, a tool for learning, and a bridge to the past and present. Consider starting a letter writing club of your own or send a letter to family and friends. Enjoy a simple reflective moment with pen and paper and reconnect with letter writing's satisfying benefits.
Update January 2016: This article in the LA Times discusses the healing benefits of writing that have been known since ancient times. Isn't it time to pick up that pen and send a friend a letter?
Update April 2016 GQ of Australia tells readers: "Even beyond the impact a handwritten letter can have, it also sends a powerful memo, whether the news is good or bad. “It immediately expresses your esteem for whoever you’re addressing it to, be it personal or work-related.”
